To use a quote that has been flying around the inter tubes lately:

From a Republican/Conservative viewpoint "I do not think that word means what you think it doe"

Considering the fact that the McCain campaign was entirely directed at low information voters (marxism, Ayers, vague policies, gimmicks like the suspension, and Palin), Obama can absolutely claim a mandate. Futhermore, whether you want to call it centrist, center right, or extremely liberal, his policies and priorities were so specific, that the right wing argument becomes absurd on its face.

And to add to that Congressional total, the Oregonian has just projected Jeff Merkeley as the winner in Oregon over Senator Gordon Smith (R). As most of the late votes to be counted are from Multnomah and Lane Counties, and they lean to the left, VOILA!!!

Excuse me, Mr Novak, as you pass to the boneyard of punditcy, but, it is almost 6 AM in Portland, OR and I must adhere to our "mandated" reveille policies and fly the Stars and Stripes, once again, with pride. Revelry sweeps the land, as Tattoo has been sounded for the right wingers to leave the field in dishonor and mandated to return to their corrupted quarters.

I'll concede all your points, Steve, but "mandate" would have much more meaning if Obama was not starting out his first year facing a trillion dollar deficit. His tail wind during the campaign will become a hurricane force headwind come January.

Basically the election came down to one candidate saying "Yes we can!" and the other saying "No you can't!"

The "Yes we can!" crowd completely drowned the other out. That's a mandate, no question.

Republicans have been working for months to minimize anything Obama is going to do. If they don't like an idea [like it'll cost rich people money] they'll say he's a "radical socialist." If they do like an idea, or he's successful at something, they'll say it's Obama being "center right".

But, I think Obama has already proven that he can't be labeled either way.

Yeah, fuck the hypocrites. Not since 1952 has a non-incumbent gotten this percentage of the vote.

Considering that Senator -- no, President-Elect -- Obama's success built upon the massive reversal of power in both houses in the 2006 midterm, I think any discussion of "mandate" should include those results. In other words, although the Democrats' gains in the Congress since 2006 might not be overwhelming, the change since the last time we picked a president has been. The country is rediscovering its progressive roots; it has been doing so since 2006; and by any rational interpretation, the election of Obama constitutes a mandate to continue that movement.

(Even more simply: It's not fair to dis Obama for failing to pick up a lot of seats in the House, since we Democrats had already done that in 2006.)

major media figures still rushed to award Bush a "mandate."

It is not there's to award.

Obama not only cruised to a major victory, but his party saw major gains in the House, Senate, and state houses. If Obama doesn't have a "mandate" for his policy agenda, the word has no meaning.

All this fuss about a mandate. Nowhere on the voting ballot does it offer an additional block that says, "...and consider this a vote for a mandate." It is only going to become important on the backside of Obama's initial policy actions. A mandate is a prediction of an outcome. If he puts forward a bunch of policies and his popularity remains high following, it was indeed a mandate. If his ratings plummet following, then he overreached and 2010 will be an interesting election cycle.

I'm betting Obama is thinking 8 years not 4.

Of course Obama has a mandate, these jokers are trying to throw up sand, but it's stupid. Fortunately, there's a lot of places where pushback can occur these days to smack this bit of stupid down hard.

Now as for what Obama has a mandate to do - well, it looks to me like his mandate is to govern the country from a center-left position, roll back taxes to where they were under Clinton, hammer out loopholes from the tax code, clean up Wall Street, noodle with the health care system a bit, pull out of Iraq responsibly, ramp up our investment in green energy technologies and do whatever it takes to jump start the economy again. So he has a mandate for a lot of crisis management and some technocratic noodling. I've never quite understood why conservatives would think of that as a "scary liberal agenda", but there you go.

If Obama doesn't have a "mandate" for his policy agenda, the word has no meaning.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

Since when did the conservative noise machine give a damn about truthful depiction of reality? See also: Stalin's politburo, George Orwell.

Let's see: Huge electoral win, more seats in congress than the republicans had at the height of their power (which is nice, because in the House that means being able to tell two or three dozen blue dogs to kiss off), and a ground organization in the millions, still ready to talk to their neighbors, write letters to their local editors, call in to radio shows. Nah, nothing like a mandate.

Dear Sir, mandate has very little meaning unless you take the meaning to be very simple. Democrats voted for Obama as the party's choice if not their own. Republicans and Independents voted for Obama because they trusted him to do what is in the Country's interest. Take a gander at the House and Senate and parse out whether or not there is a unified image of what is in the country's best interest. There is no mandate, we don't know what specific legislation would be required to meet the Country's needs. The needs of the Country have become too political. Any fool can gather an audience to support a phrase. There is hope. A great deal of hope. After eight years of a national policy based on fear, hope seems sufficent for the day. And explain why Novak is not in jail.

A couple thoughts here: It's natural for a President to claim a mandate. In Bush's case, outside of the punditocracy, the notion was quickly laughed into oblivion. You could even argue that Bush's claim of the "political capital" earned by his 'mandate' exhausted said capital as soon as the words left his mouth.

The equally ridiculous meme the punditocracy is now pushing is that we are a 'center-right' nation. By the very definition of political categories, we are a 'center' nation. The center being defined as the median or average of our political views. From there, we often chose to move to the left or right. I see no evidence that the country just chose to move to the right. If anything, it's beyond obvious that we just chose to move away from the right.

If the Bush years were centrist, we just opted for a giant leap to the left. If they were 'center-right', then we just resoundingly rejected 'center-right'.
Why are our elite pundits so adverse to common sense?

Bob Novak, this week: Barack Obama's 52%, 7 million plus vote margin of victory is not a mandate.

Bob Novak, 2004, when asked on CNN whether Bush's 51% victory was a mandate: "Of course. It's a 3.5 million vote margin."

Full transcript of that CNN bit in 2004: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/06/cg.01.html

As long as the conservative pundits continue to keep their collective head in the sand, they will never be able to honestly and coherently reflect the nature of the will of the people - just their interpretation of it. A mirror does not reflect well in darkness, and until they are able to see themselves - and the world - as it exists, they will continue to deny themselves into exinction.

i thought this guy had a brain tumor and had "retired" after he was in that hit-and-run accident with an elderly pedestrian in DC.

i guess president-elect obama really can work miracles.

Call it whatever you want, the majority of voters chose Obama and all but the willfully ignorant know what his plans are--economic renewal with the focus on the middle class, comprehensive energy reform with a focus on renewable fuels and green technology, universal healthcare, ans a drawdown in Iraq with additional troops moved to Afghanistan.
Everyone knows what he's going to do, and I highly doubt that he's concerned with how some has-been conservatives choose to define his resounding victory.
I will be interested to see how he deals with Russia, because that is one problem, aside from the fighting in Georgia, that neither party discussed much. I think Bush let our relations with them slide, I'm hoping that Obama finds a way to re-engage.

Why would anybody listen to what the buffoon Novak has to say about anything. The guy was a treasonous puke that outed a CIA agent.

Novak's rationalization is the same warped reasoning that led one conservative commentator to now suggest that Obama is not "black" but he is "mixed race". They just never give up.

Tom Brokaw chimed in on Letterman last night, inserting some rather loaded assertions as he sort of smugly offered up his so called 'expert' observations re: this election. A few in particular left me uncomfortable:

"We are definitely a right of center country"
==============================================
"Let's face it, Obama backed on his word to use public financing".
===============================================
"Obama didn't agree to do those town-halls"
===============================================
"The economy was definitely what the decisive issue was for Americans--not the war in Iraq.
=============================================

I know it's just an entertainment show, but he wasn't there to entertain. It's like these pundits we hear who assault our intelligence all day long on CNN and the like--who toss out sound byte provocative statements and typically offer no context. No elaboration, no questions/explorations about these bold assertions. They just sort of lay there, all these comments. Dave isn't prepared to challenge(or didn't want to in the slightest).

It disturbs me to hear someone come on and act as an 'expert' (indeed, he was introduced as a very wise man,eve) and it's taken as gospel truth. Obama's decision to opt out of public financing was more complicate than that. And our economy is in such dire straits all the more so precisely because of the billions we spend monthly in Iraq.
Because we are broke--we don't have money to fix our infrastructure...so it all ties in, naturally..but listening to Brokaw and many others, you'd think these were entirely distinct problems. They've certainly been sold that way to many Americans...

And then we wonder how mythology grows.

It's why shows like Olbermann and Maddow and Moyers and the like are SO incredibly important. They do provide coherency, history, context.
Thank Goodness!

Maddow said last night there are many things to be proud of, including that Liberal News Shows/ Hosts can succeed--"Yes we can", she said with a proud grin...

I grinned too.:-)

What makes Obama's victory a mandate for reversing the Bush/Republican agenda is that both Obama and McCain ran against Bush and the Republicans. To the many millions by which Obama beat McCain, add several millions of McCain voters who actually, if foolishly, saw McCain as running against his own president and party.

Conservative pundits as a rule redefine concepts and terms to suit partisan purposes (remember the study: they value loyalty over fairness, liberals are the opposite which is more rational.) Mandate for Obama/Dems or not, we need to keep an eye on the GOP during this lame duck period, because much opportunity for mischief remains. Bush is still President for a noxious 2 1/2 more months, and is still scheming to wreck things during the waiting period:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106157/

"We are definitely a right of center country"
==============================================
"Let's face it, Obama backed on his word to use public financing".
===============================================
"Obama didn't agree to do those town-halls"
===============================================
"The economy was definitely what the decisive issue was for Americans--not the war in Iraq.
=============================================

They all sound reasonable to me. Numbers (2) and (3) are hard facts.

SJRSM: It doesn't matter that there's no space on a ballot for indicating "mandate", the whole point is that when a larger margin vote for a candidate/party, it is taken as an indication of a swell of sentiment and opinion. Of course there's no clear dividing line, that's the nature of our gradient universe. In any case, inconsistently applied attributions are dishonest.

First consider the fact that BOB NOVAK IS A TRAITOR.

Second, the voters give the mandate, and when citizens respond to Obama's call to service, the mandate will be self-evident.

Also to lou:

"'mandate' would have much more meaning if Obama was not starting out his first year facing a trillion dollar deficit. His tail wind during the campaign will become a hurricane force headwind come January."

That's Bush's headwind. When Obama turns this country around, it will be his tailwind launching him to his second term.

The argument could be made that the mandate actually came in 2006 and 2008 is just the voters saying "we really meant it!"

If Obama doesn't have a "mandate" for his policy agenda, the word has no meaning.

This much is clear, Novak's words have no meaning. Doesn't Novak have some CIA operative to out?

Novak and his ilk are nothing but shameless partisan whores. They keep saying obviously hypocritical shit like this because none of their "colleagues" would even contemplate responding with, "Excuse me, Mr. Novak, but you're obvioulsy full of shit; and here's the tape to prove it." There is no penalty for being a lying hypocritical piece of shit. Just as there is also no penalty for outing covert CIA agents.

Did anyone imagine that fawning, sycophantic, obsequious, fatuous, dishonest shills for America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary the Republican Party would cease their shilling as a result of Obama's landslide victory, the electorate's overwhelming embrace of the liberal (or as John McCain would have it, "socialist") policies and proposals that Obama campaigned on, and the electorate's overwhelming rejection of the fake, phony, trumped-up, corporate-sponsored pseudo-ideology known as "conservatism" today?

Of course not. The shills will redouble their shilling, and the corporate media's newspapers, TV and radio networks will resound with their pathetic whining for the next four to eight years.

Silly Steve, mandates are for Rethuglicans.

SJRSM: It doesn't matter that there's no space on a ballot for indicating "mandate", the whole point is that when a larger margin vote for a candidate/party, it is taken as an indication of a swell of sentiment and opinion.
Posted by: Neil B

It'd be interesting to take a poll (maybe someone has) that asks in addition to how people voted, whether they'd want to have their candidate govern from the center or appeal to their base. For example, I think it is obvious that crossover voters, i.e., the ones that give the victory to the winner, would prefer a more centered position. I'm interested in pragmatic, not too far from the center policies competently executed by non-ideologues.

Red State Mike wrote: Numbers (2) and (3) are hard facts.

Thanks again for the dishonesty, Mike. Your predictable bad-faith partisanship is much more entertaining than the boring stupidity of your "analysis" when you pretend we imagine you to be an honest commentator.

Obama did not back out on his word to use public financing. He offered McCain a deal in which he would do so with conditions. McCain did not accept the deal, so Obama walked away.

As for not doing the town halls, so what? It doesn't remotely excuse McCain's grotesquely bad behavior. Or yours, for that matter. Shame on you, Mike.

whether they'd want to have their candidate govern from the center or appeal to their base.

The nice thing for Obama is, it's the same thing. The United States isn't a center-right country; it's solidly New Deal Democrat (except for an increasingly vocal, crazed and marginalized radical conservative movement), concerned about the failure of Republican economic, tax and health care policies, tired of Bush's fuckup in Iraq, and sick of Republican mendacity, incompetence, corruption and tyranny. That's the point, you numbskull.

Oh, good Ford! Red State Mike wrote: I'm interested in pragmatic, not too far from the center policies competently executed by non-ideologues.

Which explains your years of carrying water for the Republican Party.

Your pretense isn't fooling anyone, Mike. Shame on you.

As "mandate" is used, I don't believe ANY president gets one EVER.

Running roughshod over a defeated party causes unhealthy excesses regardless of teh alleged recipient.

Obama should not cite one as he fixes the damage of the last 8 years to the economy and world standing.

Mandate schmandate. Just do the work well and mindful of the occasional good advice of the opposition... all will be fine.

Well, I can see Mr. Knovak's point that Bush's victory was a mandate while Obama's may not be. This is left center country. For a conservative republican to edge out a victory obviously defines a mandate. For Obama the win is just status quo! The country returning to its natural state so to speak.

Bob Novak...where have I heard that name.

Oh, right- he's the guy who ran over someone with his car and didn't know he'd done it. The right-wing suckup who exposed an undercover CIA operation in an effort to protect the liars who attacked Iraq.

Yes, he's a small person, but there are those on the right wing who love him. Because he says what they want to hear.

Donna: "...A mirror does not reflect well in darkness..."

Well, Novak doesn't stand in front of mirrors, dear, or we'd notice he doesn't cast a reflection.

But whether Obama earned a "mandate" need not be controversial.

And yet, there's Bob Novak, using a line we may soon hear from other conservatives.

Unfortunately, it's not just conservatives. Senate leader and determined loser Harry Reid said:

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002983346

And tonight, we had a historic mandate; not a mandate for any political party or any ideology, but a mandate to get over those things that divide us and focus on getting things done.

Good grief. Why do the Democrats have as their Senate Majority leader someone who insists on shoving a major victory into the jaws of defeat? Why cant they find someone who a) actually likes to win and b) can recognize when it happens?

See, here's the problem with the right-wing pundits now claiming that Obama has no mandate to lead the country left.

For months they have been pushing the meme that Obama is the most liberal Senator in the US. Now that the country has had time to chew that over, and vote overwhelmingly for the person Novak, Kristol and others have warned would lead the country into islamo-socialist rule and a big government welfare state, one would imagine, by the rights own standards, that he was given a mandate much larger than the one he would even take normally. Hell, as long as he doesn't pull the country into the Pacific Ocean, he can move as far left as he wants.

I think I remember something about San Francisco values... I think he got that mandate (man date?), too.

Tell you what I'm going to do....I'll make this really big, life-sized statue of a homeless guy out of carbon steel---then I'll put that statue in the road right outside Novak's house---and he can smack into it with his fancy car. If America is really lucky, Novak won't have bothered to put on his seat belt, and the paramedics will find half of him on the hood, and the other half wrapped around the steering column.

If America is really lucky, that is....

"nor the needed large congressional majorities. "

How large did those gigantic Republican congressional majorities get during the reign of Bush the lesser?

I just want to know how the GOP, which admits is going through a phase where they must redefine what they stand for, can argue that the country is Center Right? How can they draw a line in the sand for where the country's political ideals supposedly lie when they themselves are in the process of redefining where that line exists?

Novak is a lying hack. No news there. He will be joined by many others, without a doubt.

every four years, these "center-right" clowns drag out the m word. if the republican wins, he always has a mandate, no matter the margin, no matter other dynamics of the campaign. on the other hand, if the democrat wins, he never has a mandate even if he wins by landslide proportions. when the republicans lose, they hang on to the word as if they were drowning at sea and grasping for any piece of flotsam or jetsam that might drift by.

There was certainly a mandate to be finished! with the Bush years.
This election was not just about Hooray for Obama and the Democrats. It was We Need to Do Somthing about the current state of the whole country.
I'd be much more impressed with Obama if he can take advantage of this opportunity for uniting the country in the way that W. did not after 9/11.
I don't know what kind of useful action or movement could be asked of us.
But Americans know this country is in trouble, and would be open to doing their part to help. Bush told the country that their part was to "go shopping", buy duct tape, etc. This just didn't do it. Obama needs to do better.
People are more likely to be confident that things are being done to improve the country if they are involved in that process.

Maybe someone other than our discredited politicians will come up with something.

The conservatives are scared spitless. I heard a group of political pundits on NPR this morning falling all over themselves warning that Obama will be bound to disappoint the high expectations on the far left and that he needs to govern toward the center and be bipartisan. You never hear that crap when they win...

Few things can make my blood boil quite like recalling Bush's claim of a "mandate" four years ago after having squeaked by with a 3 point margin in the popular vote.   I hadn't thought it possible to despise the man more at the time, but when he smugly started-in with the "mandate" stuff, it just made... me... seethe.

So while Obama has managed to more than double Bush's 2004 margin of victory, I still don't see that as rising to the level of "mandate".   In my mind, anything less than a 10 point spread (at the absolute minimum) means that you're serving at the pleasure of the fickle middle, and you need to govern accordingly.   The moment you start treating nearly half of the voting population as irrelevant (a la Bush '04), you forfeit any good will those voters may have been willing to grant.

orange